


gittarackur

by antkidu



Category: Hunter X Hunter
Genre: Alcohol, Assassination, Attempted Murder, Backstory, Blood and Violence, Canon Compliant, Gen, M/M, Pre-Canon, Romance, Voyeurism
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2021-02-02
Updated: 2021-02-02
Packaged: 2021-03-13 02:06:51
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 4,649
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/29145654
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/antkidu/pseuds/antkidu
Summary: I noticed that he had flawless skin, that his nails were recently manicured. I traced the curled hair at his nape with my eyes. Gittarackur found a pulsing vein, thought about slicing it open right then, when he looked so beautiful and calm.-or-Illumi becomes Gittarackur to escape the Zoldycks.Gittarackur becomes Illumi to meet Hisoka.
Relationships: Hisoka & Illumi Zoldyck, Hisoka/Illumi Zoldyck
Comments: 18
Kudos: 141





	gittarackur

I became Gittarackur for the first time shortly after acquiring Nen. Transformation was my first ability, of course. What else is a twelve-year-old child to do with needles aside from sticking themselves? That is, of course, what I’d been doing with them for years, when I did not need them for jobs. Father would see me, sitting in the garden, needles stuck in a row up my arm, and he would shake his head. 

“Unnatural, Illumi,” he’d say. 

Even before I knew of Nen, I always thought that if I stuck myself enough, something besides blood would come out. The  _ real Illumi,  _ I’d think. The one who didn’t jump at thunder or strangers’ hands.

Mother always made sure my wounds were covered up with sleeves when we would leave Kukuroo Mountain. To her I was, her ‘beautiful boy,’ her ‘doll.’ 

“I think you would be difficult to love if you were not so lovely, Illumi,” she would say, winding bandages around my forearms. “The world is cruel to strange children like you if they resemble their strangeness.” 

Perhaps that is why Mother spent hours bathing me, brushing my hair, examining my pores. She took my measurements daily, had me stand straight against the wall for hours. Father, of course, encouraged this, said it was only right for the eldest boy in the Zoldyck family. 

“If not, he’ll fail the younger ones.” 

I learned odd ways to pass the time during these examinations; I developed an overactive imagination which has contributed to my list of fears and weaknesses. I’d imagine spiders crawling up my arms to explain the tingling, biting me when my muscles ached. These sorts of explanations consumed everything: thunderstorms were the fault of giant feet pounding on the ground, lightning: long, dangerous fingers. When I took poison as part of my acclimation training, I’d imagine worms crawling in my upset stomach. And in my work, my targets were monsters, multiheaded, single-eyed, eight feet tall and furry, even though I knew they were humans, the same as me. 

I’m rambling, but I think that’s how Gittarackur was born: in the garden when Father’s back was turned, needles in the soft flesh under my cheekbones, down my scalp. The product of my overactive imagination, my fears, and my needles. They were burning more than usual because my nodes had just opened the day before. I let my aura flow to them, thinking it might help with the pain, and at the same time I imagined myself stronger, no longer doll-like, the type of child who might stand up and walk rather than sitting and poking itself. My skin began to pull and stretch, it hurt, like being skinned. Father did not turn around, I remember, even when I started to scream. 

But it turned out alright. 

He looked odd on his birthday, not like he looks now. Then, he was only a distorted Illumi, not a full-fledged other. But I refined him, got to know him. Each day, I’d stick the needles more precisely and push into his identity. He was strong and mischievous, with severe cheekbones, an oblong jaw. He ate with his hands, barrelled up trees, and laughed at things: Mike chasing his own tail, the scamper and bicker of the little Zoldycks. He made a show of the amusement, always with a smile, clicking out his honest words like a typewriter. When it rained, he sat in it, undisturbed, and if it thundered, he could keep still. He’d let bugs crawl on him, he could sleep on wet earth. I hated to let go of him, not just because removing the needles, once they were soaked in Nen and buried, felt like tearing out chunks of my own flesh, but also because when he was gone, I was back to being boring Illumi, the doll. 

I got older; my hair got longer. Mother enjoyed it, and would comb it for hours when I came home from jobs. She’d brush my hair and take my measurements before she let me wash the blood off my arms, and I’d sit and let her. 

“Don’t squirm.”

“Don’t laugh when I measure you; your laugh grates at me.”

“Ahh, such a tiny waist, Illumi. Good boy.” The measuring tape wrapped at twenty-seven inches: only ten inches wider than the width of Gittarackur’s neck. 

I got older; I didn't outgrow my childish fears. My younger siblings found it especially amusing that their eldest brother, who could gut a man in seconds, jumped at thunderclaps. They were right; it was funny, but the humor of it made me irritable and cruel. A slap to the fat cheek was all it took to get Milluki to shut up, but the smaller ones were more stubborn. With Killua, I had to resort to flashing bloodlust until the muscles in his face could not lift to smile. 

Later, someone would tell me that I forced all of my fear into Gittarackur, who was a me I could not acknowledge. The thought made me feel naked. 

Mother hated Gittarackur, but he did not care. She banned him from the indoors, but he went inside anyway.

“You look horrible like that, Illumi. I can’t even bear to look at you.” 

_ Good,  _ he thought. Though,  _ I _ was mired in shame, and the moment I removed the needles, I’d be apologizing at her feet. 

Father found him annoying. “Too noisy. I don’t understand why you use your ability when it’s not necessary, Illumi. It’s a waste.” 

I began to do different jobs as Gittarackur: jobs Father did not know about. Father inherited an elitism about jobs from Grandfather-- we did not take them from anyone who could not send staff to discuss the details. I agreed with this approach; the wealthier the client, the riskier the job, and the years of training would have been a waste without risk. Gittarackur, however, did not care where the kill came from, so long as it paid. 

It was easier to work as Gittarackur while I was away on longer assignments; I could remain in his skin for days. He did not worry about his skin or his waist; he said what he pleased, laughed without fear. Gittarackur had not suffered to become a killer, he was simply born in one’s body. He got in targets’ faces with an animal gleam, cut through them and watched them die up close, aware and unashamed of what he was. 

And he celebrated his spoils with drink. Even after I came of age, I wasn’t allowed to drink alcohol of any kind. Mother said it would ruin my disposition and cause blemishes. But Gittarackur, as was his wont, often picked up jobs at bars where forearms stuck to tables and needles littered the floor, damp with rot and mold. He enjoyed himself, attracted only fearless attention: those too drunk to fear, and those too strange. 

One such attendant was Hisoka Morow, a man who dressed like a clown. 

“I’m banned from most bars in Padokea,” he liked to brag, with a smooth smile and a lingering lip on the rim of his glass. 

Gittarackur would give a creaking laugh at that. I would bristle. 

There were rumors about Hisoka, but no truths. He was a professional fighter, he was a gang member, a mobster, people said, always with a bit of a sneer as if they doubted that a man like him could be any of those things. Perhaps we got along, then, because I knew. I could tell by his look that he was a Nen user, perhaps a danger, and he could probably tell the same by Gittarackur. But we never acknowledged this in our conversations. He would, however, talk about the Arena, and Gittarackur would play dumb, though I knew he meant to show his power. 

Hisoka and Gittarackur also talked about other things. Hisoka liked to go to live shows, to dance with strangers under flashing lights. He liked strange foods, fruit which smelled like rot, seafood which still wriggled as he ate; he liked complicated card games. He and Gittarackur played a few, but Hisoka always won. He’d shoot a puzzled look when he did, and Gittarackur would only shrug-- he is not as adept at strategy as I am. 

“What kind of music do you prefer?” Hisoka asked. He was always sipping something colorful to clash with Gittarackur’s clears and browns.

“Anything loud,” Gittarackur clicked. “Lots of instruments. I wasn’t allowed to listen to music as a child, so I--”  _ Illumi.  _ Gittarackur busied himself with his drink, acted as though he forgot he was speaking.

Hisoka grinned. He never pressed. “We should go to a show.” 

“I don’t like them.” I didn’t know who said that, or why. 

We never went.

Sometimes, I’d catch Hisoka looking at Gittarackur through narrowed lids, with a curling lip. Studying. He liked Gittarackur’s muscles, traced them slowly and wantonly, but he paid special attention to the needles. Gittarackur didn’t worry about this, but I wondered if he knew. I’d stare at the upward swoop of Hisoka’s eyes, the curved hollow below his cheekbone, the deep seam of his smiling lips-- there were times that I wanted to tell him, but I was afraid his smile would dissolve, that he would look away and never look back when he saw what kind of creature I really was. 

When I’d come home covered in blood and sit on the edge of the bathtub to be poked and prodded, sometimes instead of ants and bites, I would think of Hisoka. 

Close to my twenty-second birthday, a woman approached my pin-stuck other in one of the bars Hisoka was banned from. Gittarackur was at his usual place, leaning against the back wall of the dance floor, sipping whiskey neat. He had gone through some appearance adjustments to match my evolving taste-- he wore his nails longer, painted them purple; his teeth were straight now, like mine, where they used to be jagged. And I’d altered the pins in his neck to make his voice higher, cloying mechanical rather than threateningly deep. It was almost as if I wanted to sneak a bit of myself into him, to see what would happen. 

I wondered if Hisoka noticed the changes. Perhaps I was trying to tell him, in my way, that I was cowering behind a warped mask.

“I heard you do contract work,” the woman said. She was young, blonde and petite. Her eyes were deep brown, doeish. Gittarackur found it amusing that she approached him with such bluster; he clicked into laughter as he ran her up and down in his squinty red gaze. 

“Yes,” he said, throat jumping with the syllable. “I do.” 

She didn’t show even a flash of fear, only determination. “I want you to take someone out for me. Kill them.” 

Gittarackur raised his thin eyebrows, smiled wider. “I can do that, yes. I just need a name, a method and a time frame. A justification, too, if you’d like. I can relish it more that way.” 

The woman nodded diligently, unphased. “It’s Hisoka Morow. I know you know him.”

Gittarackur made a sound somewhere between a choke and a laugh. I felt my palms slick. Gittarackur could kill Hisoka, I was sure, though the thought filled my mouth with a strange bitter taste, like strychnine. Painful, but unable to hurt me, I thought.

“He may be tricky to kill, so I’d like you to do it in whatever way possible, but try to make it hurt. He cut off my husband’s arms and let him bleed out in our living room.” There was no pain in her voice. The way she talked about it made it seem like she’d watched without crying. 

Not that I could judge her. Maybe her husband had been a brute. Maybe he’d deserved it. Gittarackur relished the image of Hisoka oozing bloodlust, splattered in someone else’s gore. 

“Alright,” said Gittarackur, his nod crackling. He didn’t apologize for her loss. “And the time frame?” 

“As quickly as you can.” 

Another nod. “It’s seven hundred per body. I’ll find you when the job is done.” He’d already memorized her scent. 

She smirked, pleased. “You’re cheap.” It was true-- Father would’ve spat at this; seven-hundred thousand jenny was only a fraction of the Zoldyck rate. 

I should’ve sensed something odd about her, but Gittarackur was too distracted by the thought of how we would kill Hisoka. How we would hunt him down-- in his bed, at his work? At the bar, in public? Should we make a show of it? Should we slice him through the neck, or cut him so that his insides would boil over and spill? An intimate strangle or an impersonal pin-stick? The thoughts made our throat tight, stirred something up in us. Would he shock and cry, shouting himself red, or would he die colorless and dull? 

_ Oh,  _ I thought, from Gittarackur’s head,  _ I have to vomit.  _

  
  


It was cold out, the night that Gittarackur was meant to kill Hisoka. My own job had ended two nights prior, but I’d lied to Father, said it was causing me difficulty, so that he wouldn’t suspect me for staying in the city a bit longer. There would be punishment when I returned home, of course, but something in me needed to give Hisoka a thought-out death. Gittarackur, of course, preferred savagery and randomness, but Hisoka was a man who had entertained us for so long, so fearlessly, that he deserved it, we thought.

Hisoka’s Nen signature, which he had not bothered to hide as of late, made it easy for Gittarackur to track him down the morning after my job. The scent, posies and blood, was especially present because we’d seen Hisoka the night before -- I’d transformed myself to calm the post-job shakes, and went for a glass of whiskey with a flicker of hope he’d be there.  _ Our last supper _ , I thought, giddy from the drink, when he sauntered in wearing his usual snake’s smile. 

Hisoka’d been wistful. A lump formed in my throat as he spoke to Gittarackur, as if we were old friends. 

“I grew up in Meteor City, you know,” he said, rubbing his finger along the rim of his glass. “Growing up with nothing does strange things to one’s mind. I know a man who went so mad with greed that he killed a village because he wanted to collect their eyes; he liked the color.”

“My mother grew up in Meteor City,” Gittarackur replied. It was the first time he referred to Mother as his. “She wants everything to be perfect.”

Hisoka only nodded, smiled, changed the subject to something frivolous as he downed his drink. 

I noticed that he had flawless skin, that his nails were recently manicured. I traced the curled hair at his nape with my eyes. Gittarackur found a pulsing vein, thought about slicing it open right then, when he looked so beautiful and calm.

The next morning, Gittarackur stalked, invisible with the practiced Zetsu of a professional killer. Hisoka lived alone, walking distance from Heavens Arena in an apartment surrounded by windows, framed with greenery and filled with odd, colorful sculptures. 

_ He’s confident,  _ I thought. At the time, I believed that Gittarackur could have plucked a needle from his collar and ended things with the snap of his wrist. But, of course, that is not what either of us wanted.

Instead, we watched Hisoka wake up ruffled, freckled, and soft. In only briefs, red hair down and curly at his neck, he drank sparkling water, an espresso, at his island while scrolling absently on his phone. He did dishes and methodically cleaned his kitchen, and I studied the way the light rippled on his muscles as he moved, the lines cast over faint pink marks on his neck and chest. Gittarackur catalogued the vital points: the barely-visible drag in his left leg, his stiff right shoulder, the yellowing bruise wrapping around his bicep. 

We hummed. 

He peeled off his underwear to shower and I busied my gaze on his upper thighs when he bent, the careful swell of muscle building up to his rounded ass, and up to the twin dimples in the small of his back. My mouth went dry. It wasn’t unusual in my line of work to step into perverse voyeurism on a job, but I’d never felt aroused by it until Hisoka. I was ashamed. Gittarackur looked down, picked at some peeling paint on the windowsill we were perched in. 

Hisoka had a peculiar way of getting ready. Naked and rosy from the shower, he stood perfectly still in front of his mirror, hands on his waist, surveying his body with narrowed eyes. Then, he pushed on his stomach, folding, watching himself move before gliding into the mirror to inspect his face. 

After moisturizing and rubbing a series of oils and treatments over his skin, he released his Ten, gathering it in his hands to smother himself with transformed aura as if it were lotion. He started with his face, and moved down: his arms, middle, even the undersides of his feet. Straightening up, he was glistening smooth, freckle-free and made-up: the Hisoka he was in public, who looked like he’d echo if knocked on. Smiling wistfully, he re-examined himself in the same way he had before, turning in slow circles, bending every hinge of his body, pinching and pulling at his cheeks, opening his mouth and staring down at his molars.

“He’s just like you, Illumi,” Gittarackur remarked cheerfully. Just like me, except that Hisoka chose the scrutiny, did it in front of a fogless window for anyone to see. Just like me, except that he used his Nen to become a beautiful, glistening thing, and I used mine to become Gittarackur. 

I had a pit in my stomach as Hisoka left for Heavens Arena. The last time I was at the tower, I had my Nen shocked into me in front of a crowd of jeering onlookers. I’d surprised them all, kicking and screaming so violently through my initiation and standing up afterward, bursting with aura and bleeding from my ears. Father was looking at me with pride in his eyes. The memory was mixed: the worst pain, the most fleeting confidence. I was jealous of myself as I’d been then; I was jealous of Hisoka, getting to strut into his battle as a practiced Nen user. 

Gittarackur had no such preoccupations; the only thing on his mind was death. And he found it, his key to the kill, plastered just through the Arena entrance: Hisoka’s fight, tomorrow evening, his first on the two-hundredth floor. 

We’d wait for him in his living room.  _ He’ll be drained after,  _ Gittarackur’s clicking thoughts.  _ He won’t stand a chance.  _ A smile stretched Gittarackur’s leathery face, squinting his eyes, pulling at the needles which adorned every crease. Splitting the smile, I bit at one of the branches of the tree we were perched in, imagined swallowing as the wood splintered in my throat. Gittarackur wasn’t letting me question his method, but I knew that if I popped one of his needles out I’d have halved myself with worry.

As I said, the night of Hisoka’s death came in cold. 

This was the kind of weather that Gittarackur preferred: he enjoyed running wild in whip-thick wind, the suggestion of a storm. 

I shivered, wondering if it would rain. Gittarackur was like a child in his glee; the lay-in-wait was his favorite part. Before making our way to Hisoka’s apartment, he stopped at a kiosk and had two buttered pretzels and a beehive of cotton candy. I never ate before jobs, and Gittarackur’s dinner sat like a weight in my abdomen. 

But as the time neared, I noticed his mood fading, mingling with mine. Almost as if he was hoping to be caught and stopped, a pierced, hulking freak clattering through a stranger’s window, he let his steps fall heavy up the fire escape to the second floor; he hesitated to jiggle the lock on the window, frowned when he realized that it was not clasped, that it opened with a palm-nudge. The needles in his face knocked against the glass as he slid through.

Gittarackur was crouched in the kitchen like a common burglar when the front lock clicked open and the lights blinked on. It was just past ten; we’d been hiding there for a half-hour. Hisoka’s fight had commenced at nine thirty-- he’d made quick work of it. 

Hisoka’s heels clicked in the entrance way, and there was some shuffling as he removed what sounded like a coat, jingling as he hung his keys. Gittarackur’s muscles were starting to tense in anticipation, fingers twitching around a needle at his collar. He’d go for the surprise of the jugular first, as he always did; he rarely needed Nen. 

That’s why he let out a guttural gasp, stuttering into Ten when Hisoka materialized, squatting and grinning next to him. He was a sight: blood dried over his mouth and nose, hair all flyaways. Not stopping to ogle, Gittarackur lunged forward, the needle slicing through the space between them. 

Laughing merrily, Hisoka flipped back, landing catlike in a handstand and righting himself as he raked a hand through his hair. “Mm,” he hummed. “You can do better than that, can’t you?” 

Gittarackur is better with hand-to-hand combat than I am, more willing to brave collisions. 

The needle left Gittarackur’s fingers with a whistle, only to be caught inches from Hisoka’s neck in a pool of pink aura. Hisoka laughed again, propelling the needle back towards us with an elastic thrum. Gittarackur caught it like an insect, pinched it between his knuckles as he swiped at his collar to collect the rest; he sent them flying at once, dove for Hisoka’s feet as Hisoka blocked the barrage with a sheet of aura. 

Hisoka’s heel slammed into Gittarackur’s eye socket, a sharp pain with a burst of warm blood gurgled down his cheek, but he managed to yank Hisoka off balance by the ankle, and there was a wet smack as Hisoka’s head hit the counter and he crumpled into a heap between the island and the cabinets. 

Blood blurred half of Gittarackur’s vision; he jumped to Hisoka’s folded body. It would’ve been easy to rip Hisoka’s heart out as his eyelids fluttered. But Gittarackur, for the first time in his career, hesitated just as his claws sharpened. Coming-to in the gap, Hisoka’s eyes cracked and he slid out of the way just in time for Gittarackur to careen through a cabinet door. They were cheek-to-cheek, chest to heaving chest. 

“Ooh,” Hisoka whispered. “Is it usual for your heart to beat so fast?” 

Gittarackur grunted and twisted, elbowing Hisoka across the face and knocking him onto his back. New blood splattered from Hisoka’s already-split lip, painting his cheek and neck as he slumped under Gittarackur’s weight. But he was still grinning, swiping his tongue across his reddened teeth, eyes sparkling. I shivered. Hisoka reached forward with a spread palm and suddenly it felt like all of my skin was being ripped from my face; my vision went white.

He tore all of Gittarackur’s needles out at once in a wad of warm aura. 

_ He knew.  _ I convulsed, my vision pulsing in and out. In my last moments of vague fluidity before the shift, my hand swiped for Hisoka’s hand; I braced my weight into him, holding him down. His bloody mouth was in a smiling ‘o,’ his eyebrows raised as I curled, beginning to warp, against his body. The spine went first, burning as it contracted, snapping itself into the shape of my straight back. My fingers dug into Hisoka’s shoulders as my skin pulled taught, as my skull liquified and rippled back to its original structure; I felt my own teeth digging through my gums and tears misted my eyes. I knew to keep my expression neutral through the change, or it would be worse, but as I watched Hisoka smile, shocked, up at me, two failed killers in one, I wanted to scream. 

Keeping my teeth clenched and the whine caught in my throat, I shuddered through the last of my transformation. Hisoka jerked under my weight, set me off balance and took my hands in his so that when my skin settled I was staring into his golden eyes. My hair cascaded over his face. We could feel each others’ breath. Outside, it began to rain.

“Ohh,” he said again. His voice was hoarse. The smell of his blood was thick in my nostrils, and my own, from when he’d kicked Gittarackur’s eye, was dripping onto his face. My skin throbbed.

Even so, I had him pinned. He was out of breath. I could’ve killed him; I’d conjured one of my long needles, held it between my fingers. With a flick, it would bury itself into his brain, make him into a drooling zombie. I knew from the wary look in his eyes that he knew. Using his palms as leverage, I kicked one of my legs up to jam into his ribcage, straightening my arms to loom over him as I decided what to do. 

“I expected something terrifying,” Hisoka coughed, his eyes traveling blearily over my lips, down my neck, the hollow of my throat. They were swimming, from pain or exhaustion, as I wedged myself further into his sternum. Gittarackur had been right; the fight at Heavens Arena had taken its toll. “But you are quite…” 

I swallowed audibly. The rain rumbled against the windows; I heard it splattering on the floor underneath where Gittarackur had wedged his way in. My heart beat into my throat, felt like it was bleeding. 

“You’re… fascinating…” Hisoka wheezed. “What are you?” 

_ He’s joking,  _ I thought. I had kept my face blank, but I wondered if he could see my lips trembling around my reply. “I’m an assassin,” I said. I eased up. 

He shook his head. “Don’t trust me.” 

I pressed down again, dug my nails into the webbing of his fingers as a vicious heat spread in my stomach. My needle was cold between my knuckles, poised.  _ I could do it.  _

“Are you going to kill me, then?” He was still so full of life, even smeared and cut. I’d never been this close to a job before, never really been seen. I swallowed again as thunder exploded around us, flickering the lights. I closed my eyes; it was all I could do to keep my shoulders taut. I freed my hand from Hisoka’s, pressed the end of the needle to his temple. I heard him take a sharp breath in, perhaps his last-- 

There was another clap of thunder and my hand shook so violently at the sound that the needle broke Hisoka’s skin. I jerked it away, panic erupting in my chest, distracting me from the storm. Hisoka’s eyes were squeezed shut, his mouth twisted into an anguished grin. I ground my teeth, staring from my shaking hand, to the tiny pin prick-wound, his face, to the whorls of tousled hair; as lightning lit the room, I leaned down and pressed my lips to his. 

He kissed back, slowly, achingly, running his tongue over mine, finding the small of my back with his fingers, dancing up my spine. I lifted my knee off of his chest and he let me this time, arching his back so that we were pressed, sweaty against each other. I felt the heat between his legs as I pushed against him. My fists rested on either side of his head when I pulled away. We stared at each other. 

“Who are you?” he asked again. “I hired you so that I could find out.” 

My heart flowered. “Illumi Zoldyck,” I replied.

Thunder burst again, but I was still. 

**Author's Note:**

> thank you so much for reading..... i had to give gitta some saucy Lore
> 
> this is my first canon-compliant, non-explicit fic, written to cure my incurable case of gittarackur brainrot. thank u to my friend eris for helping me come up with this idea.
> 
> pls leave me a comment and let me know what you thought! <3
> 
> -wyn
> 
> ps:  
> if you would like to get mad at me or confess your love to me on social media, please visit my twitter @antkidu or ask me a question on curious cat - https://curiouscat.me/antkidu


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